


my stomach turns and i exhale

by Princex_N



Series: making strange with one another [6]
Category: Marble Hornets
Genre: Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Injury, Past Character Death, Post-Canon, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Suicidal Ideation, Trauma, like... kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:15:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24459568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princex_N/pseuds/Princex_N
Summary: They should have left him in that school. Let him bleed out retribution and guilt on old floors and rot, silent and alone.They didn't, so now Alex has to find other people to do it for him.
Relationships: Alex Kralie & Brian Thomas
Series: making strange with one another [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1711201
Comments: 1
Kudos: 19





	my stomach turns and i exhale

**Author's Note:**

> finals are over; i got sick out of my Mind last night; let's rock and roll
> 
> title from Eve 6's song [Inside Out](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8Xb_7YDroQ)

There's a slow rot inside of him and it's not going anywhere. 

He knows that there's nothing better than this for him, that this is better than he's ever deserved and that gratitude should taste holy on his tongue like spring water after mouthfuls of dirt. 

It does not.

Sometimes he watches them and hates them for considering him, convincing him in quick moments that there's some abstract reason to stick around. For tripping their way out from in front of the barrel of his gun just long enough to steal the muzzle away from the side of his head too. 

They should have left him in that school. Let him bleed out retribution and guilt on old floors and rot, silent and alone. 

They didn't, so now Alex has to find other people to do it for him. 

He stumbles through the front door of the apartment, dizzy with pain and the heady combination of medication and alcohol, and winds up pinned under the weight of Brian's staring eyes. There's no point in hiding or trying to leave, and stubbornness blends into the feeling of rightness still singing under his skin, and Alex makes no move to wipe away the blood smeared over his face and hands. 

(He dreams of it, sometimes. Countless blows and the crushing weight of blood loss, there should have been blood _everywhere_ , cleansing and burning all at once. Sometimes he scratches his neck and his dirty broken nails catch on the phantom sensation of the ragged edges of wounds that never happened. He can never quite decide if they're nightmares or daydreams.) 

He doesn't bother to pretend as if he doesn't know what Brian wants. They've done this song and dance before, enough times that everyone knows all the right moves, and Alex fucking _hates_ him, can't stand him, despises the role he played in shackling Alex to this life instead of what could have been. He still goes to sit in the chair left empty for him without complaint. 

Brian doesn't ask, never does. This role is one he undertakes because of that (Tim and Jay, always trying to convince _someone_ that they don't actually care, still can't stop themselves from admonishing in gentle tones that make Alex want to lash out just for the satisfaction of bracing for another blow). He only takes Alex's hand and pokes at the split knuckles with fingers that don't tremble, the only sound between them a low questioning hum that Alex can acknowledge or ignore. 

He thinks about it over the chemical bite of alcohol clearing out the grit of alleyway dirt and strangers' blood. 

"I forgot," he says finally, and Brian doesn't look up - doesn't even twitch - cotton over broken skin in short static bursts. "No, I didn't _forget_ ," he corrects after a moment, "I just wasn't thinking about it, and when I realized, I had to make it right again." 

Make it right. Restore order. Balance the scales. Picking fights is easy, always has been, and has only gotten easier alongside the years and the trauma. The lingering call to hunt and the ever-present demand to hurt satisfied by strangers found in dingy bars and goaded with well-aimed words and jabs. It's easy and will only ever keep getting easier, and no amount of sad looks from Tim or sarcastic barbs from Jay will ever be enough to stop him. 

His mouth tastes like blood. The metal doesn't gag him like the name does. 

"Amy," he admits, the name gunshot loud in the silence, even as his whispered voice cracks it down to almost nothing. He hadn't forgotten, not really, but the crushing weight of her absence and the knowledge of his role in it had faded without him noticing, and the realization of its disappearance had nearly bowled him over as he'd left work. Even now, the full weight of its burden back on his shoulders, nose broken and bleeding and eye swollen shut and lips split and ribs bruised, it's not penance enough and never will be - he should have bled to death in that building because he doesn't deserve absolution and never could. 

Brian only hums his acknowledgement, doesn't dig verbal nails into the vulnerability or try to soothe it away. It's a sort of progress. Alex almost wants to brace himself for another blow. Brian's hands linger over the ruined skin of Alex's knuckles, split over swollen scar tissues because this isn't the first time and won't be the last. He hums again. "Should, should I be less-less-less, a little less careful?" 

The way he trips over the words is familiar by now - not anxious or uncertain, just the new cadence of his voice tinged with almost familiar sarcasm. Alex can never decide if he hates it or not. Some part of him - small and buried and pathetic - had wanted to hear Brian's voice during those years under the hood, but the new unsteady trip of it grates like bone on cement and blood on upholstery (but sometimes Alex wonders if it's that simple, if Brian seems more comfortable with it than he is with any other remnant of his fall, but Brian doesn't offer any insight and Alex won't ask). 

Alex considers the actual question and nods, and Brian digs out another cotton swab and doesn't say another word. Neither of them make a sound, Brian drags chemical disinfectant over the wounds with harsh roughness and Alex grits his teeth through the pain and lets it satisfy the well of rage in both of them. 

There's a familiarity to it, a sort of twisted comfort. Brian manhandles and digs and scrapes at the open wounds with sharp fingers just as willing to hurt as they are to help, and Alex weathers the pain and lets it settle against the sandpaper decay in his chest and soothe the ragged edges of its open gore. The edge taken off, the call for blood and penance satisfied a little more, at least for now. 

It drags on as long as they can allow it, until Alex's skin is cleaned and bandaged and the injuries ache tender and raw and Brian's eyes search for more with something half-disappointed lurking behind them. He cleans up the first-aid kit under Alex's scraped clean gaze and neither of them say thank you. 

"She deserved, deserved more. And you never deserve anything better than this," Brian tells him, voice calm and ragged with the nail of his thumb digging sharp into the torn corner of Alex's mouth when he grips his jaw. Alex hisses but doesn't pull away, doesn't protest, it's nothing he doesn't already know. He won't ever let himself forget because it will not _ever_ be fixed or forgiven. "None of us do," Brian adds, lightening the pressure to touch the edge of the wound with something that could almost be careful. 

(One day, Alex will probably pick a fight with the wrong person, and he'll bleed to death in an alleyway instead of coming home to scrape out the rot under Brian's steady hands. It'll be the correct way to end things, puzzle pieces sliding into place a little too late, the predestined story coming to a close. He'll rot, finally, and if there's any freedom in death, Alex doesn't want it. He wonders if they'll mourn him. He wonders if he'll mourn them in return.) 

"Let's, let's sleep," Brian finishes, the slap against Alex's bruised cheek lands almost playful, the grip on the shredded skin of his hand almost conscientious. Alex doesn't try to pull away, whatever instinct for self-preservation he had left had rotted out of him years ago (Every time he pointed that gun and got wrestled to the ground, he'd hoped they'd be the one to kill him. It never let them the time to euthanize him, put him down before he could hurt anyone else, put him out of his misery. He hated it for that more and more each time, every missed opportunity stretching the boundaries of his rage to new limits. It never let him close enough to kill it, but it was always close enough to watch.) 

He doesn't fight as Brian leads him to the mattress on unsteady legs that drag over the carpet in sluggish pain, doesn't protest the press of their bodies against one another, and against Jay or Tim who are already asleep. 

Brian's hand rests over Alex's chest, Alex's wraps desperate into the fabric of Brian's shirt. Alex digs his teeth into the split tissue of his cheek until it reopens over his tongue and he wakes up in the morning drooling new patches of blood into the pillow. Tim makes him toast and drops him off at work on his way to his own job, and doesn't say a word about the blood pooling under skin and bandages. 

The rot grows. Alex lets it. Nothing really changes. 

(He can never tell if it's enough or not.) 

**Author's Note:**

> sorry i can't seem to write uncomplicated hurt/comfort for alex and/or brian lmao; they're the ones my brain chose to project onto and i'm... yeah. i'm working on it
> 
> [my tumblr](http://www.princex-n.tumblr.com)


End file.
